SO THIS is what angsty emo musicians get up to when they are off duty... Marmaduke Duke, aka The Atmosphere and The Dragon, aka Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil and his chum JP Reid of Sucioperro in masks and silly costumes, is a playful side-project
which has somehow grown legs. Second album Duke Pandemonium was allegedly produced in a 24-hour whirlwind of activity, and doesn't hang about in delivering its clipped electro funk grooves. As well as borrowing gleefully from Prince, Daft Punk, Bauhaus and Afrobeat throughout the album, Neil and Reid draw on their natural prog tendencies for mentalist centrepiece Pandemonium. Why don't they have this much fun all the time?
STEVE EARLE: TOWNES
***
NEW WEST, £12.72STEVE Earle is somewhat galled to acknowledge this album as the best collection of songs he has ever recorded – because they were all written by Townes Van Zandt, the late Texan troubadour after whom he named his son, Justin Townes Earle (who also plays on the album). Van Zandt's songs are part of Earle's musical DNA, and his deep understanding of the material shines through his loving renditions, from the romantic yearning of (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria to the rapid-fire storytelling of Mr Mudd and Mr Gold to the intimate moments when it is just Earle and his guitar upholding his mentor's memory.
CLASSICAL
BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS 3, 4 & 5
*****
LINN, £13.70WHAT makes this trilogy so impressive is the fact it was never originally meant to be a trilogy. Pianist Artur Pizarro, Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestras were booked last year to record only Nos 3 and 4, which they performed live in the orchestra's main season. Committing them to disc in record time, the team was left with a day's recording time left over. Someone suggested adding No5, "the Emperor", the parts were rushed to Perth Concert Hall, and CD2 of this set was the result.
The performances' freshness should therefore hardly come as a surprise. Pizarro brings the same alacrity and individuality to every one of these works as he did on the stage. The Third Concerto is delivered with delicate precision, in addition to which Pizarro paints its overriding mellifluous quality with sensitivity of tone, and in the pensive slow movement a sense of mystery.
A similarly muted and probing questioning – the deliberate spreading of the first chord – permeates the Fourth.
But these are not performances lacking in explosive voltage, as Pizarro's lightening dexterity in "the Emperor" proves conclusively. He holds back on the fireworks simply to explore the great beauty in these works. With Mackerras and the SCO providing utterly sympathetic support, the overall impression is of unanimous intention and glorious teamwork. And to think they were all but sight-reading.
JAZZ
JULIAN LAGE: SOUNDING POINT
****
EMARCY, £12.72GUITARIST Julian Lage was a child prodigy, and made a very impressive debut in Scotland in his mid-teens with Gary Burton at the Glasgow Jazz Festival in 2005. He has waited for the ripe old age of 21 before unleashing this thoughtful and remarkably mature debut album.
Like many contemporary jazz musicians, his musical training and inclinations take in classical and folk influences in a natural and fully integrated synthesis. His playing is consistently poised and inventive, but never simply flashy – he wears his undoubted virtuosity comfortably, without having to make a point of it.
He has surrounded himself with a combination of familiar names (pianist Taylor Eigsti and Bluegrass wizards Béla Fleck and Chris Thile) and his own peers, including saxophonist Ben Roseth and a Latin-inflected rhythm section of Jorge Roeder on bass and percussionist Tupac Mantilla. His own compositions reveal a strong and refined musical imagination, and when they do turn to covers, as in Elliott Smith's Alameda, Neal Hefti's Lil' Darlin' and the Miles Davis classic All Blues, they give the music a fresh, distinctive stamp. A major talent in the making.
FOLK
OYSTERBAND: THE OXFORD GIRL AND OTHER STORIES
***
RUNNING MAN RECORDS, £10.76DESPITE the familiar titles, this isn't a compilation marking 30 years of the English folk-rock stalwarts. Rather, it's an enjoyable reappraisal of songs from their history, newly re-recorded in acoustic versions that are more rootsy and often less bombastic in feel than the originals. Band compositions like The Early Days of A Better Nation, the bouncy When I'm Up I Can't Get Down, The Oxford Girl and Shouting About Jerusalem are supplemented by the unaccompanied hymn-like What A Wondrous Love Is This? and a couple of traditional staples.
WORLD
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO GYPSY MUSIC
***
RGENT, £8.80THE Gypsy music section of my CD library is so large that I wonder what a title like this can possibly add: hasn't every worthwhile note been heard, every word said? The answer from this Rough Guide is "not quite," but I'm not sure how valuable its contribution is.
Yes, I know Gypsy music is forever on the move, but there's a quality in some of these tracks which is so in-your-face that you'd be hard put to it to recognise it as Gypsy at all. Gypsy music's traditional trademark qualities – plangency, cleverness, and charm – are missing, with brash over-amplification (and over-close miking) instead. OK, Slavic Soul Party and Mostar Sevdah Reunion are echt turn-of-the-century stuff, but they can be overpowering in large quantities; at least Sevdah appear here with a track in tribute to "Gypsy King" Saban. But why on earth represent the wonderful Taraf de Haidouks with their very ordinary take on a Viennese waltz? Perverse.
On the plus side, Fanfare Ciocarlia give a mournfully seductive number with Ljiljana Butler, and with Son de la Frontera and Musafir showing how the Gypsy-music gene has developed in Andalusia and Rajasthan, the wider ramifications of the genre are well reflected.
But this CD's saving grace is the presence of Bela Lakatos and the Gypsy Youth Project, with a song-and-dance piece which has that trio of timeless qualities in spades, and with a bonus CD introducing this young group at length.
Here, Gypsy virtuosity combines with a timelessly Hungarian sensibility to lovely effect. With its irresistible melange of vocal and instrumental numbers, this "bonus" CD is more solid than the disc it's supposed to be supplementing.
The full article contains 1081 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
